an amaranthine kind of love

Everyday for the past couple of months, I have been receiving daily text messages comprising of random vocabulary and concurrently, their definitions.

Today's word [and hopefully not the last bit of inspiration today] is amaranthine. Meaning unfading or everlasting.

Immediately, I thought of Love.

Until recently, Love has been an extraordinarily confusing and misleading subject.

Here is a blurb of my current progress.

Love is misrepresented [to the fullest extent of the word] in the media, especially within its musical facet. Portrayed as an emotion that overcomes all fear, other hopes, dreams, and things of that sort. This sort of influence in my younger years lead me to try to seek out and discover this definition of Love. Being who I am, I obviously made a great deal of mistakes and am entirely embarrassed [and cringe] merely reflecting on these moments. I was confusing Love with lust, and was attracted to any female [outside of family. this should be obvious, but there are some odd individuals out there] who would give me any sort of attention. The most ridiculous moments [to me] were when I thought that this Love that I felt would be an amaranthine kind of Love. Needless to say, it fell short.

In my limited wisdom, I have conjured up a revised definition of Love that I would like to believe is rooted in scripture/theology and personal experience.

Love is not an emotion. Love is not even a noun. [refer to: PJK brother of KMK [lol, this makes me feel greatly clever and incredibly nerdy at the same time]]

Looking into 1 Corinthians 13 4-8 [I have included the verses for reference below] Love is described as actions.

[ ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ⁸ Love never fails.]

In this sense, Love, at its core, is perfect service to another individual. Just as Jesus served us.

In my experience, to Love an individual is incredibly difficult to do. I struggle. Immensely... on a Daily basis. But the beauty of my situation is [beyond the fact that I am blessed] that I have family and a core group of friends that will continue to Love me.

If the above verses appear to be difficult to memorize and complete, I have found that selfishness is an umbrella that interconnects most if not all of the above tasks. [the same could be said about pride] When I discovered this, I reevaluated my life, habits, and actions and found that once again, I fell short.

[tangent: faith is NOT works based. It is not about working until you become saved. Its that you ask to be saved, therefore are. From this, works should be a part of one's life. Similar to brushing your teeth [serving your own dental hygene]. It will bring joy, it will become annoying, but you keep doing it because it has become a part of who you are.]

[tangent: this is why accountability is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL for a faith abiding individual. You need steel to sharpen steel. This goes a few ways, but I will be brief. Its going to hurt, you will be put through fire and be bent all out of shape. This partner needs to be bold, you will not become the tool you need to be if you are being refined with a match. This is a continuous process, after use, you will need to be sharpened again]

Love, therefore is integrated with service.

From this, trust, hope, happiness, joy, all of these things can be fostered and become an amaranthine kind of Love.

I can only hope that I retain this wisdom [hopefully add on to it].

Another interesting note:

'love never fails'

Aka, Love always wins.

So I find that a fight is inherent. [reference below]

inspiration

It is when I least expect it, I am the most inspired.

From this image, I realize that I have to fight.

Not the kind of fight that one would find in quotes similar to 'love, dont fight. but fight for what you love'. But rather fight as the ancients once did. The brand of fight that would make Kings look like gods and warriors like heros.

But keep in mind, from my teenage years, my idea of 'fight' has been rebelling against my parents by not eating and running random red lights past my curfew.

So to me, this really is a revelation.

Anyways.

It's not that I missed blogging [but at one point it time, I found that blogging has been quite satisfying. Satisfying like finishing homework satisfying as opposed to climbing a tree satisfying].

I have decided that I really do want to be a good writer. And to do so, practice is required. So hopefully, I will spontaneously [hopefully frequently] post new and rather exciting topics and ponderings.

Who knows, maybe I will become wise and mature.

Regardless, until next time!